If There Is One Major Issue the Innovation Scene Must Address…

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It’s diversity. The world is being written and consumed in code now. But the teams writing the code aren’t reflective of their global customers.

We often hear that major companies can’t find enough talent from different backgrounds because of a pipeline problem that starts in schools. At PowerToFly we disagree. We don’t want people to have to wait ten years to bring more women onto their tech teams. No. We want people to hire qualified women now. The way we do that is through remote work. Everyone is focused on hiring local talent, but once you lift that requirement, you can find a huge swath of highly skilled women in tech who can report to you via distributed tools from offices around the world. It’s my hope that diversifying teams won’t even be an issue, let alone a pressing one, in the next decade.

[Editor’s note:To tap the wisdom of our distinguished group of Xconomists, we asked a few of them to answer a question heading into 2016: “What is the most pressing issue for the innovation community?” You can see other questions and answers here.]

Katharine Zaleski co-founded PowerToFly to solve a very personal problem that affects women across the globe. After the birth of her daughter, she had two choices: go back into the office for ten hours a day or slowly cut back on her hours, and ultimately, her career. Instead she launched PowerToFly in August 2014 with Milena Berry. Follow @kzaleski